Tuwhenuaroa
Natanahira
Political reporter
Labour Leader
Chris Hipkins is welcoming the Strategic Partnership agreed
to by New Zealand and India but says there will be
consequences if New Zealand does not fulfil its side of the
deal.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Indian
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met in Auckland on Saturday to
unveil the Roadmap
to 2030, a list of commitments to strengthen the
relationship of the two countries including a doubling of
two-way trade and deepen maritime defence
ties.
Hipkins told RNZ that “overall” the agreement
was a positive step.
“How we develop that, what the
detail we put around that looks like is going to be pretty
important from here, but overall a closer relationship
between New Zealand and India can only be a good thing for
New Zealand”.
Yesterday Luxon had to again bat away
concerns over a clause in the India Free Trade Agreement
(FTA) requiring the government to “promote” investment in
India, despite his Indian counterpart calling it a
“commitment”.
Speaking in Hindi, Modi thanked the New
Zealand government for its “commitment” to US$20 billion
(NZ$34.7b) of private investment in India within 15
years.
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However, Luxon said the the FTA included a
“commitment to promote” investment and the issue was
“clearly understood on both sides”.
Hipkins said that
investment had been a “long-standing discrepancy” in the FTA
and the way India perceived the clause was “quite different”
from how New Zealand saw it.
“That’s something that
New Zealand exporters doing business in India need to be
eyes wide open to.”
“India sees that as a firm
commitment on New Zealand’s behalf to invest $20 billion in
India over the next 15 years, whereas the New Zealand
government simply views that as a commitment to promote
investment in India, that is a real discrepancy.”
He
said there were “potential consequences” for New Zealand if
that played out in future years and New Zealand businesses
needed to keep an eye out.
Hipkins got the chance to
speak with Modi and told RNZ the conversation was “very
warm” and “very useful”.
“We talked about the
importance of the New Zealand-India relationship and how we
needed to do some more work to grow it and we reflected on
the fact that quite a lot of progress has been made in the
last three years.”
“We highlighted some of the
emerging opportunities such as direct flights between the
two countries, something I think we both like to see, and
the potential for New Zealand to continue to share
knowledge, expertise and enterprise within India.” he
said.
One notable absence from yesterday’s formal
meetings was Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters, who
was away in Singapore and Japan.
Hipkins said Peters’
absence was “unfortunate” and it seemed like Peters and
Luxon had “quite different views” on international
issues.
“It doesn’t further our reputation around the
world, it makes it difficult for our international partners
to figure out actually what does New Zealand think on a
range of issues.
“I hope that in the future we can get
back to having one New Zealand government when it comes to
international relationships, not multiple governments, which
is what we seem to have at the moment.”
Prime Minister
Modi left Auckland on Saturday night after attending a
speaking event at Spark
Arena.
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